A Muted Reality (Clean Feed)
Angles
Released June 17, 2022
New York City Record Best Album of the Year 2022
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lg-iISuFI_Lysl_pA18_XF48p-gMVCBWk
Spotify:
About:
A band of many configurations, from trio to tentet, this time Martin Kuchen’s Angles work with a 8-piece format the formulas you already know of pathos, playfulness, energy and bliss, but in renovated ways because the project is never fulfilled, never completed, as any investigative process should be. The music inside “A Muted Reality” comes from the heritage of Charles Mingus and Carla Bley, drinks from the ensemble ideas of Chris McGregor for his Brotherhood of Breath, and incorporates melodical aspects of the Swedish and Balcanic folk musics and rhythmical foundations in West Africa. The results are astonishing, going from the very simple to the grandiose, the detailed, sound centered, to the theatrical, the strictly organized to free-blowing improvisations, all of this with a big band sense of musicality, as if there’s many more participants in action. «An emotional roller coaster», wrote critic Guy Peters about this exhilarating proposal now one more time renewed. To Kuchen, geometry is infinite, open to unsuspected angles and material possibilities.
Track Listing:
1. A Muted Reality 15:38
2. The Hidden Balcony 13:41
3. Fkk Down, Fkk Off 09:07
All compositions by Martin Küchen (STIM, NcB)
All arrangements by Angles 8
Personnel:
Magnus Broo: trumpet
Goran Kajfes: trumpet, Maestro soundsystem for woodwinds pedal
Johan Berthling: double bass
Konrad Agnas: drums
Mats Äleklint: trombone, sousaphone
Mattias Ståhl: vibraphone
Alexander Zethson: piano, Juno 106
Martin Küchen: alto saxofone
Alexander Zethson/Mattias Ståhl/Konrad Agnas/Martin Küchen/Mats Äleklint/Goran Kajfes: handclap/additional percussion
Recorded 22nd of April 2021, at BAS, Bandhagen, Stockholm by Martin Jonsson and Mats Äleklint
Mixed and mastered by Mats Äleklint
Produced by Angles
Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul
Design by Travassos
Photo by Rui Baião
Review:
For Swedish saxophonist Martin Kuchen, all music is folk music. Proof of that statement is the Angles’ release A Muted Reality. Whether he is referencing Balkan, African, Swedish, American jazz or Spanish dialects, he is drawing on kindred spirits in his music. With the various editions of his Angles projects, from trios to 10-piece small big bands, he releases music of the people, i.e. people music. This version of Küchen’s Angles is an octet and the eleventh in a continuous series of outstanding recordings.
The title track opens the disc. It is a melancholic cortège that progresses from its initial darkness to a heightened state of energy. Muted trumpet is accompanied by vibraphone and eventually Küchen’s alto saxophone and Alexander Zethson’s piano solos which arc into a crescendo of sound. The impression is of an Eastern version of the Gil Evans/Miles Davis Sketches of Spain (Columbia, 1960) with a muddy take on third stream sound. The same reference to Eastern folk can be heard with “The Hidden Balcony” which settles into a perpetual groove accented by Mats Aleklint’s thunderous trombone and a Bohemian dance ending. The brilliance here is Küchen’s arrangements for these eight talented musicians. He can combine beautiful ensemble playing and raw soloing, neither seeming inconsistent with the other. The finale, “Fkk Down, Fkk Off” is a swinging boogie-woogie treat, performed at breakneck speed. It might make Gene Krupa and Cab Calloway smile.
Mark Corroto (All About Jazz)
